Ethereal Shadow
by Rage Muffin009
Summary: Six months after Jet and Joe defeated black ghost, a new enemy arrives from the shadows.
1. Chapter 1

With a heavy sigh I pressed down the button for the intercom.

"Send in the cleanup crew. This child is a failure." Almost as soon as the words were spoken men and women in white uniforms came in and looked at the small child, his black hair contrasting his pale skin. Many were smirking, others showing no expression at all. A handful of people picked him up while others unhooked his wires. A few aside set up medication that would be used to keep him calm, not so much for his sake, but simply because they cared not to hear his cries for help. Before they could complete the medicine the boy's brown eyes shot open. Seeing the people around him he kicked and punched his way free and, not sure what else to do, started running. The cleanup crew began yelling.

"Code Blue! Code Blue! Seal all the doors!" As the boy ran through the hallways looking for an escape he listened as the doors began to close. After running through many doors and fighting a handful of men in his way he found himself outside. Willing his legs to keep moving he continued running as he heard that voice again.

"You idiots! Don't let him escape!" The boy ran a few more feet when someone grabbed his leg.

"Come on. Let's have some fun? I think you'll like my game." He felt himself get pinned by someone smaller and looked into there eyes, unable to see most features due to the dark. His heart skipped a beat as he saw this person pull out a syringe. With what strength he had left he kept the needle just out of reach and punched the person, knocking them off. Though his muscles ached he urged his legs to move and was soon out of sight of those aweful people.

Inside the watch tower, seeing all that had happened, the leader sighed. They looked over at a robot, obidiently standing, waiting for orders.

"Finish the Job. And whatever you do," They paused, "Don't get them involved."


	2. The boy

Joe looked around the forest and smiled. Despite the beautiful trees, flowers, and animals he was paying much more attention the the woman next to him. Joe's heart skipped a beat as he looked at Francoise. Though she wasn't as curvy as some girls, in Joe's mind she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her blond hair and green eyes were so much more beautiful than any Japanese girl he would ever meet. On top of that, recently, she was all he could think about. Joe reached his hand over and held Francoise's slender hand. He hoped she didn't notice his hand shake, or his heart beating fast. He swallowed and looked at her.

"Francoise, are you happy?" The French cyborg looked at the half-Japanese cyborg and smiled.

"Of course I am. Black Ghost is gone, we're together, and we have no problems. What could be better?" Joe blushed at the we're together part. Only weeks after defeating Black Ghost, Joe had finally had the courage to ask Francoise to be his girlfriend. However even though that took even more courage than fighting a God, Joe now had trouble telling Francoise those three words he wanted to say so badly.

"I'm glad." Joe wrapped one arm around Francoise and kissed her lightly. She smiled at him as there lips parted.

"Francoise, I-" Joe was suddenly cut off by screams. The two looked over towards the direction.

"What was that?" Joe looked at Francoise.

"Someone's chasing a child." Francoise grabbed his hand and began to run towards the screams.

"Sweety, I'll run ahead of you!" Joe clicked the switch in his back molar and disappeared, heading towards the screams. He soon found a man in a coat attacking a small boy.

"Let me go!" The boy screamed, clearly exhausted and pale.

"Hey!" Joe yelled, getting the man's attention. Joe punched the man, caught off guard as the man's head completely turned around. Before he could react Joe grabbed the kid, handing him his blaster gun.

"Stay behind me." Joe ordered the kid and ran towards the robot. The robot fixed his head and picked up and threw Joe as he went to attack. Joe skidded to a stop and ran back to the man, body slamming him and pinning him to the ground.

"Who are you?!" Joe demanded the robot, who just smirked. The man once again threw Joe off of him and ran towards the boy. The boy panicked when suddenly the robot dropped dead.

"Joe, are you ok?" Francoise walked over to the boy and smiled, putting away her gun.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Joe walked over to the two of them. "Are you ok?"

"Y-yes...I..." The child fell over.

"Did he pass out?" Joe looked worried.

"I think he fell asleep." Francoise said, looking at the child. "Joe?"

"Yes?" Joe went to pick up the boy.

"He's a cyborg." Francoise pointed at the boy, causing Joe's eyes to widen.

A few days later the team was once again together for the first time in six months. The boy had little to say, either out of fear or simply lack of energy. The team however was anxious.

"Are you sure it was a robot?" Jet had asked for likely the tenth time.

"He deffinately was, though I don't know why one showed up after everything that's happened. Not to mention Francoise saying that kids a cyborg." Joe repeated. Soon the professor, Francoise and the child walked into the room.

"Hey, are you feeling better?" Albert smiled at the child warmly, ignoring Jet scoffing. The boy shyed away hiding more behind Francoise and looking at Joe. Chang came in from the kitchen offering the boy more food. Several peices of fish, rice, and bread were soon gone as the boy ate it quickly.

"Thank you." The boy said softly and smiled.

"I know you've been through alot recently, but can you tell us what happened?" Albert asked the boy who shivered a bit.

"Jeez." Jet scoffed once more. "We're just trying to help you, y'know." The boy shivered more due to Jet's harsh tone.

"Ignore Jet. He tries to act tough but he's acctually a nice guy." Joe smiled, ignoring Jet's glares. The child looked at the team and swallowed.

"I-I was running." He started, "From some lab, with really scary people." Joe looked at the team, having a bad feeling about the 'really scary people'.

"I know this is hard kiddo, but we need to know as much as we can so we can help you." Albert said kneeling in front of the kid. The boy looked at them.

"My name is Mikolaj. I'm from Poland." Albert nodded as the team listened to Mikolaj. "After my brother dissapeared, some men from the state came to get me and take me to a new home." Joe felt his heart sink, knowing all to well what that meant. Francoise rested her hand gently on Joe's shoulder. "I fell asleep and when I woke up I was in a lab. They did all these tests, and I always failed. So they..." The boy trailed off, not finishing as tears filled his eyes. Albert Held the boys shoulder with his left hand, not wanting to use his right hand out of fear of scaring him. "They tried to get rid of me." Mikolaj looked at them and wiped his eyes.

"Get rid of you?" Francoise sounded worried, expressing the same worry as the rest of the team.

"They tried to scrap me." Albert's eyes widened, getting Francoise's attention.

"Who did this to you?" Albert looked at him sternly.

"A big company. Black...serpant? No" The boy thought. "Black...ghoul?"

"Black Ghost?" Jet said irritated.

"That was it!" Mikolaj looked at them as the team's expressions all changed from worry to fear. "What's wrong?"


	3. Shocking Revolation

Albert walked around, repeating one word in his head. Scrapped. Albert shuddered at the idea that Black Ghost still would do that. It scared him more than the fact that they were still around. He rememberd back to when he first became a cyborg, back in the 60's. His body had failed to live up to the expectations the scientists had wanted.

"If we don't fix him, we have to scrap him. Leader's orders." Albert remembered another scientist saying that to the Doctor. Albert had broken down after escaping and asking what that meant, and he regretted ever asking. The Professor explained all that they did. First they drugged the subject to calm them, but not sleep. They slowly shut down the body except the brain, taking apart all the working cybernetics. Then, finally, the subject was melted and disposed of, while still alive. Albert shuddered as he remembered all the screams from failed experiments that had met that aweful fate. He was sure that no one else besides him and the professor knew what that meant, but he also knew that someone would ask soon enough.

"004?" He looked over at the brunette cyborg who looked concerned. "Are you ok? You've been really distant these past couple days." Albert should have known Joe would be the first to check on him. Joe was extremely kind hearted, and though it sometimes caused problems with strangers, he always made sure the team was alright. If Joe ever saw that something bothered someone, he always came to see if they were ok.

"I'm just thinking things through." Albert tried to cover up just how scared he was, hoping Joe would drop it.

"Well if you need me, come find me." Joe walked off with Albert's back turned to him. "Hey Jet." Albert sighed. Now he couldn't escape.

"Well you sure are uppity today." Albert could hear Jet smirk.

"Not in the mood 002." Albert meant it as a warning, but knew Jet would just keep pestering him.

"Well most of us aren't very happy, y'know? You're not the only one surprised those bastards are still around." Jet leaned against the wall next to Albert. Albert shrugged. Jet glared. "What's really your problem 004?" Albert sighed knowing the hot headed american wouldn't stop if he didn't explain.

"I'm just worried for that kid." Albert watched as Jet's hard expression softened.

"Yeah, I feel sorry for him." Albert was surprised to hear Jet show concern for Mikolaj. Albert knew that Jet was a caring person past the cold hearted tough guy act, esspecially with kids, but he also knew Jet was to prideful to let his guard slip very often.

"Hey guys, come check this out!" The two cyborgs went downstairs and saw the news. A local power plant had suddenly went up in flames, putting several area's of the city without power. While the media blamed the accident on lack of staff during the night, the team noticed similar styled scorch marks on the wall of the place.

"Looks like electrical damage." Pyunma spoke up, recognising the style from when the team had fought the 0010 twins.

"But for there to be that much damage over something so minor. Plus most of the plant was unharmed except for that area." Francoise spoke up. Behind them Mikolaj was typing away on a laptop.

"What are you looking at kiddo?" Albert looked at the screen.

"I looked up more on the accident, and found some pictures from the security camera's." He showed the team the pictures of what appeared to be a teen sneaking into the place late at night.

"How did you find these? They haven't even shown them to the public yet." Joe looked at Mikolaj, who just shrugged.

"I just found them." Jet cocked his head and looked at Mikolaj. Joe looked at Albert.

"Should we check it out?" Ruby eyes met blue as Albert looked at him.

"It's probably worth checking out. The problem is getting in." He looked at Mikolaj. "And kiddo should stay here, to be safe." Joe nodded in agreement.

"Then we'll scope it out tonight."

Several hours later the team, short of Ivan, Mikolaj, and the professor were hiding just outside the view of the camera's when something caught Francoise's eye.

"We'll have to sneak in somehow. Me and 002 can probably go in and shut down the alarms without to much trouble." Joe whispered to the group. Jet nodded in agreement and the two started over when Francoise pulled on there yellow scarfs.

"Wait, you two!" Jet hissed a bit under his breath.

"What's wrong, sweety?" Joe ignored as Jet made an annoying and teasing 'aww' sound.

"The camera's are shut off." Francoise pointed to the camera's closest to them.

"Maybe they got damaged during the accident?" Chang thought out loud. Francoise stared at the building.

"No. The place is completely quiet. Everythings shut off." The team looked at Francoise.

"Well then let's take the oppertunity to walk in undetected, while it lasts." Albert said. The eight people stormed into the place, with Francoise wondering what could have caused everything to shut down. The team split up into three groups. Chang, Jr, and Pyunma took to the north of the building, Albert, Britain, and Jet took the west and Joe and Francoise took the east. The teams all looked around for anything out of the ordinary, but appeared to find nothing. An hour after arriving the team met back up.

"Nothing out of the ordinary?" Albert looked at the team.

"Maybe it really was just an accident?" Britain said just moments before a huge explosion rocked the facility. The team all ran towards the large room, filled with expensive looking computers, now all fried. Standing in the center of the room was a teen wearing a blue uniform with a red scarf, his back turned to them. He turned to look at them. His long black hair was kept up in a ponytail and had dark brown eyes. His facial features were much like Joe's.

"Is he a robot?" Joe asked, noting the resemblence.

"He's a cyborg." Francoise said, surprised. Joe glared.

"Who are you?" The teen scoffed.

"I'm 0014. I'm glad to finally meet you." He smiled slyly. "Big brother."


End file.
